Chevrolet Corvette Stingray C7 Forum - View Single Post

GrnMchin · 12-13-2008, 09:14 PM

As a union (IAFF) member, before you bash them with limited info let me give you some insight. Yes every union is different, but when cuts happen most unions try to make concessions to save jobs. We have gone through a down size in my union and the mud slinging started right away because the year our contract happens to get negotiated is the year of the economic down fall. Immediately the public screamed "greedy firefighters!" they aren't thinking of their brothers and are just taking pay raises on the backs of those laid off. All of the members overwhelmingly agreed to make any concessions to keep our employees from getting laid off but never once was it openly discussed in the local newspapers so if you look at it from the point of view of the paper you would never have known that we were trying to save the jobs of our brothers behind the scene. Because the paper only posted the negatives, such as the fact that we were getting a pay raise and the people were getting laid off. The real facts are that we only asked to get paid median of our comparables and had the administration had a better handle on the budget they would have known that the increase was going to put them in the red. If they had informed us of that during negotiations, we would have stay at the current pay scale and negotiated a cost of living raise rather than the increase that was agreed upon. The other half of this that complicated matters is that after management was forced to look at the budgets, they found almost 700K that they had mismanaged and did not account for. Most of the jobs where saved and the three that we were not able to, the UNION called other locals that were hiring and found the work at other FD at Union's expense. SO to sum it up some of the issues and work that goes on behind the scenes is more then it appears, much like an Iceberg. I will hold judgment until all the details are presented. Remember the banks did not have to go into detail as to how they were going to use the money like the auto industry has. My 2 cents.

12-13-2008, 09:14 PM	#48
GrnMchin Not easy being Green Drives: 67 Nova SS Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Olympia, WA Posts: 2,256	As a union (IAFF) member, before you bash them with limited info let me give you some insight. Yes every union is different, but when cuts happen most unions try to make concessions to save jobs. We have gone through a down size in my union and the mud slinging started right away because the year our contract happens to get negotiated is the year of the economic down fall. Immediately the public screamed "greedy firefighters!" they aren't thinking of their brothers and are just taking pay raises on the backs of those laid off. All of the members overwhelmingly agreed to make any concessions to keep our employees from getting laid off but never once was it openly discussed in the local newspapers so if you look at it from the point of view of the paper you would never have known that we were trying to save the jobs of our brothers behind the scene. Because the paper only posted the negatives, such as the fact that we were getting a pay raise and the people were getting laid off. The real facts are that we only asked to get paid median of our comparables and had the administration had a better handle on the budget they would have known that the increase was going to put them in the red. If they had informed us of that during negotiations, we would have stay at the current pay scale and negotiated a cost of living raise rather than the increase that was agreed upon. The other half of this that complicated matters is that after management was forced to look at the budgets, they found almost 700K that they had mismanaged and did not account for. Most of the jobs where saved and the three that we were not able to, the UNION called other locals that were hiring and found the work at other FD at Union's expense. SO to sum it up some of the issues and work that goes on behind the scenes is more then it appears, much like an Iceberg. I will hold judgment until all the details are presented. Remember the banks did not have to go into detail as to how they were going to use the money like the auto industry has. My 2 cents.